Back with a Vengeance
by Annabel the Scribe
Summary: In which Silas manages a miraculous rise from the dead, the Bishop reflects and there is a large amount of gore and violence. [TEMPORARILY ON HOLD]
1. Eulogy

**Annabel: Hello! This is my first fic, don't insult it too badly. My writing tends to go all deep and dramatic, expect no romance but do expect sorta clichéd sappy-ish stuff. And, like all you guys, I don't claim the Da Vinci code as my own; I do not own Silas or any of the other cast. However, I will be highly pissed if I find any of –my- writing anywhere else. Thank you. **

Don Walden was a new worker in the morgue and was about to get the shock of his life. Admittedly, though the new body wasn't the first albino he'd had to deal with, it was the first albino that had been covered in blood from a deep wound on his side.

The blood against the chalk-white skin was so vibrant that it seemed almost to glow with an unearthly quality, which was decidedly creepy. Don looked down at the dead man's face. It was set into an expression of tired reverence with the eyes closed and was like that of an unpainted china doll – blank, pale, ethereal – accentuated by the blood spatters on the albino's face, as if someone had been about to paint it but, after accidentally splashing it with paint of the wrong colour, abandoned it to lie alone, collecting dust, wasting away into nothingness. What Mr Walden also noticed was that it was fairly young – the man wouldn't have been much older than 35. He sighed – it was sad to see people dead before they should have been.

_Obviously,_ he thought, eyeing the bullet wound in the albino's side, _he didn't have too much say in this._

He shook his head. "Poor man."

And then, as he watched the pale, empty face, the eyelids flickered. Mr Walden thought it was an illusion until the lids peeled upwards to reveal pink irises.

Walden's own eyes widened as a chilling shudder of fear ran up his spine, and a scream escaped his lips, wrenching the air of the almost empty rooms.

Bishop Aringarosa sat in one of the front pews of the church. Things were quiet, eerily so. Before, when things were normal Silas might have walked in to pray, or ask a question. The Bishop had often been amazed at the albino's strong will and, above that, faith. Faith was rare in a man who had experienced so many horrors in his past. When the Bishop spoke with Silas, he'd always watched the albino's face, for his smile was a miracle in itself and Aringarosa often wondered – when he smiled, did he remember his past at the same time? Was it possible for him to smile in spite of that?

Manuel Aringarosa had never been treated to the complete story of Silas' past – the albino had hinted, and the bishop had read the article about the prison escape and gathered that Silas was one of the escaped. He didn't believe Silas could have done wrong, and if he had, the Bishop was sure he felt remorse. He'd heard Silas murmur in his sleep about his father, and a recurring statement.

_Usted es un desastre. Un fantasma._

He wasn't sure if Silas had been aware of this and had never mentioned it to him. There were so many things he had never asked his ward, so many things Silas had never asked him. Secrets, hidden parts of their pasts, so many things they would never tell each other. Such was the way of Death.

Aringarosa couldn't believe how much he was missing him. Silas had always been so faithful, so devout, so passionate. The Bishop knew that anyone who had the albino's trust could be guaranteed a comrade who would go to the ends of the earth for them. Die for them.

_He died for the Teacher and he died for me,_ thought the Bishop. And then a thought entered his mind that he shunned, that he felt went against the "love thy neighbour" commandment. _Curse you, Leigh Teabing. This is all your fault._

**Annabel: Well, what did you think for a first chapter? It _was_ longer but I didn't have much time to type it as I am actually meant to be off the computer now. No, I am not trying to start a Silas/Aringarosa romance, it just sounds like I am because my writing is so sappy. XD See you all when I update.**


	2. Awakening

**Annabel: Thank you so, so much to my reviewers for the first chapter, I appreciate getting feedback on this sort of thing.**

**Anyway, keep R&Ring… this chapter is a bit illogical and sounds kind of strange to me, but… read it anyway 'cause otherwise you won't understand lots of stuff coming up. And that would be bad for reviews – lots of people being confused and having their heads blow up would not be good critiquing. :D**

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"Ahh! Go away, don't hurt me!" cried Mr Walden as the figure woozily raised itself into a sitting position. The albino blinked his red eyes to examine his surroundings. Finding them unfamiliar, he swivelled his head to the direction of the hysterical screaming. He'd woken with a mild headache and the screaming wasn't helping.

The source of the screaming appeared to be an averagely built man with trimmed brown hair standing behind him, who became all the more distressed as the albino's gaze fixed him with puzzled curiosity, which, mutated by his reddish eyes, seemed to Mr Walden to be a vicious glare. With two of his fingers, one from each hand, he formed the symbol of the crucifix and backed away. "Stay back, ghost!"

Realising he would get no help here, the albino decided it might be a good time to leave. He was in some sort of odd white casket – gripping the sides he started to lift himself out.

Mr Walden abruptly decided to go home early.

The albino, now with his bare feet on the floor, watched him go – his muscles were too stiff to do any pursuit just yet. He feebly raised an arm but knew it wasn't going to do anything.

_How did I get here?_ he wondered, looking around. _What happened to me?_

And a sudden, sickening feeling that made his throat feel constricted.

_Who am I?_

There was a stab of pain in his side as he shifted his pose slightly. He looked down.

Though the blood was dried, the wound was still flaming pain. He didn't want to pick off the scab and risk infecting the wound just to see how big it really was – but he suspected it was serious.

Tentatively, he tried a few steps. He could do it, but he was slow, and the momentum of the movement of his legs cut into his side.

_I need help._

But where could he get help? There was nobody here, and no means of contact he could use to get it. He was going to have to walk again. Bracing himself for the effort, he suddenly stopped as a fleeting thought filled his mind. A Christian cross – a church, the dim figure of a man standing in the doorway.

_The Bishop will help me._

He blinked. The Bishop? He didn't understand the flashback – it had been too brief for him to note all the finicky details. Was it even real? It could have been a memory of a dream, but it didn't seem like that. It was so vivid, so absolute. It couldn't have been anything other than a memory.

The only problem was he had no idea what the vision was trying to tell him.

_I am going to get out of here first, and then I can think about it._

He didn't like this place – it reeked of disinfectant covering the smell of death. Every time he touched something he felt like the smell was on him as well. It was like being in a hospital or something to the same effect.

Limiting his movement so the pain in his side was at a minimum extent, he held himself up by gripping anything that would support his weight. After what seemed like a ridiculously long time, he was in the hallway. It was a grim and depressing place – white tiling covering the floor and walls until, at waist height – for him at least – it continued with grey hessian. Plastic lampshades harbouring light bulbs formed a spaced line along the ceiling. The lights were off, and the albino found it hard to see. But the windowed double-doors at the end of the hallway allowed light to sift through their frosted glass, rich with the promise of escape. If he hadn't been able to see that light, he felt he might have collapsed right then and there. Given up forever.

He fell against one of the doors, flakes of dried blood dislodging themselves from his hand as he broke his fall with them. He was lucky the door didn't swing open.

Taking hold of the door handle, he pressed the button on it so it would lock after he had gone through. After opening the door, he stepped out into the Parisian night.

Bright lights and city sounds overwhelmed his senses. They seemed to roll out of nowhere like an unanticipated wave, and he had to close his eyes. The building he'd just come out of was near a very busy road, but there were few people on the sidewalk at this time of night. It was late, he could tell from the sky, but he could tell little else. A gust of cold wind reached him and he instantly regretted locking the door behind him.

_I'm going to have to find somewhere to sleep_ _or I'm going to freeze._

And another memory hit him. Actually, several memories. They seemed to appear sequentially, bursting into his mind like fireworks before fading and bursting into the next one. He remembered first a dimly lit room, and angry, foreboding footsteps heading toward him. Then he remembered a damp alleyway at night, crawling behind a rubbish bin. The basement of an abandoned warehouse… a cell, prison-style bunks on the wall… and finally, a memory of himself… lying in wet grass, bleeding and praying.

They didn't seem like real memories and they didn't make any sense. But in his mind they were all cold. It was immediate motivation to find shelter. He stumbled onto the footpath and started staggering down the street. He ignored the pain in his side. He was sure he could do worse.

A man in baggy pants and a sweater walked past him, frowning at him. The albino looked back at him, but said nothing. Anyone who looked at him like he was a rabid freak wasn't going to help him.

_I need someone with a phone I can use,_ he thought. But the other pedestrians were equally unfriendly and the albino stood helplessly outside the building, wondering what to do. He was beginning to feel woozy and sat down on the steps. Then he saw it.

Could his luck really be that good? There, at the bottom of the steps was a shining silver coin, just enough to get him a phone call. He plunged forward at it, gripping it between his finger and thumb. He knelt and swivelled his head round. There was a telephone box not too far away. Unbelievable luck. Unbelievable.

He stood and limped over to the phone box, stepping inside and practically seizing the phone and jamming the coin into the slot. He dialled the emergency number and asked, in a broken, guttural voice, for the hospital.

"_Allo_?" asked a voice on the other end of the line. The albino was beginning to feel dizzy.

"I am… I…" he muttered.

"Excuse me, sir, we can't hear you," was the response. It was a feminine voice.

"I am in a telephone box on… I do not know what street it is … and…"

"Well, if you require assistance it would be a great help if you knew where you were," said the voice in an annoyed fashion. "Any land marks?"

"Okay, I will just…"

He looked back at the building he had just come out of. He felt the blood draining from his already white face and a stutter of confused disbelief escaped his mouth.

"Hello?"

"I am in front of the city morgue and I cannot…"

A wave of dizziness slammed him in the head. With a mumble of, "Ohh…" he collapsed in the phone booth, his legs seeming to collapse beneath him, unable to support his weight. He dropped the phone, his body twisting slightly to the side so his head cracked against the wall of the box, knocking him unconscious. He could not hear the frantic voices on the other end of the line and was oblivious to the wailing sirens. He did not feel the desperate hands lifting him onto the stretcher into the ambulance. He felt nothing in his tormented sleep, dreamless and empty.

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Woo! Tension. Yes, "the albino" _is_ Silas (who else would it be?), only he doesn't know that yet. I am working on the next chapter as we speak. My calculating mind can say little other than there will be more Bishop-ness soon. Keep reviewing!**

**(I fear I will not be able to keep up this amnesiac thing for very long, it is becoming tiresome referring to Silas constantly as "him" or "the albino".)**


	3. Surgery

**Review Responses:**

**Snape's Opera Rose: Thank you, darling, for the lovely review, you are highly thought of in my books. :D (When/if I ever publish my non fan-fic story you shall have mention! Haha, I can see that going down well on the dedications page, the editors would stare and blink and be like, "what the…?")**

**lara: 'Didn't he "die" in London'? Of COURSE he died in London! I just couldn't live with that sort of thing. It would actually be medically possible for him to be temporarily comatose (because sometimes comatose people seem dead?). Would that please you better, sweetie? Because I could always say that happened. And no, I'm not trying to sound mean; you are a lovely little person… however anonymous you may be.**

**hugs them both Thank you, my two little review angels! And especially you lara because you reviewed twice. :D I hope you both continue to like the story… although I shall give you a warning, and this goes for everyone else too… if you don't like gory hospital scenes involving needles and scalpels and lots of blood you probably won't like it and may want to skip it out. It's sadistic, well, not really, because most people working in hospitals don't get high on the sight of blood because of the problems that would cause… and the doctors here (who are MINE, not Dan Brown's, that's all I claim) are also of the non-bloodthirsty variety. Thank you for your time. :D**

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The hospital ward teemed with the regular confusion as the stretcher was wheeled in and manoeuvred into a small square cubicle sealed off by four blue curtains. Inside the cubicle were several anonymous machines and monitors.

The clips on the stretcher's wheels were clamped down to keep it immobile, and Doctor Charles Lawson, a British doctor who had been transferred to the Parisian hospital the previous year, began analysis.

"Jesus Christ, Vanessa, this man's been to the gates of Death and back by the looks of things!"

The nurse sighed. "Very professional diagnostics, Charles. What should we do about it?"

Doctor Lawson's mouth set into a thin line as he concentrated, thinking seriously this time. "I think we should anaesthetize him and do something about that wound. He seems to have lost a lot of blood from it – it's a wonder he's still alive, in fact – though it's not new – see, the blood's dry. Then, when he wakes up, we have to talk to him. The secretary who answered his call said he sounded delusional and we might need to get a psychologist in or something."

Wasting no time, Vanessa reached for the needle of anaesthetic even as Lawson spoke. Checking the tip of the needle was clean she swabbed the area she was going to insert it into with a cotton blood before driving the metal point into the patient's pale skin. She watching the fluid in the needle subside, not even batting an eyelid. Then she withdrew the needle and wiped away the single drop of blood that appeared from the site.

Her right hand, encased in a white rubber glove, then deposited the needle into Lawson's extended palm. He handed her another cotton swab and she began dabbing away at the dried blood. She realised soon that the wound wasn't as large as she'd initially thought it would be.

"I don't think he'll require surgery," she said, still working. "It doesn't look infected either and –"

She stopped dabbing and fell silent as she registered the depth of the main wound and the black of the bullet, barely visible beneath a layer of congealed blood. Her stomach turned slightly in what she considered to be a very unprofessional manner.

Without looking at Lawson, she spoke. "I think I just changed my mind. Look at this!"

Lawson leaned forward to examine the wound. "God. For a second there I was hoping it would just be a wound to fix and a mental problem. But nooo. Just my luck. A _bullet extraction_ and a mental problem."

"Would you stop with the smart talk and religious references?" Vanessa said, a little angrily. "Obviously, we're going to have to extract the bullet, so help me with these stretcher clamps and help me get him upstairs."

And so the clamps were undone and the stretcher was off for another excursion. It glided smoothly over the smooth blue tiles and rolled easily into the large hospital elevator. Neither Lawson or Vanessa spoke as the elevator doors slid open, they just pushed the stretcher with an almost mindless determination and speed.

Minutes later, the man was on the operating table with the two doctors standing over him. Vanessa had applied another anaesthetic, just to be safe. Lawson fitted the oxygen mask and then the nurse leant over the body with a pair of elongated tweezers. She gently dug it into the now clean wound. It made a soft, squashing sound as it pressed against the raw flesh. There was a small spurt of blood as the tweezers opened slightly to receive the bullet, before she was able to tug it out. There was little resistance.

For a second Vanessa held the bullet still in the tweezers, its bloodstained profile intriguing her. She glanced down at her albino patient.

_This man should be dead, and he's not…_

"Lawson, I need a plastic bag," she said. Lawson raised an eyebrow. It sounded random and silly, but he gave her one. She gently dropped the bullet into it and sealed it.

Lawson stared at her. "Why do you need it in there?"

Vanessa glared. "You know perfectly well. We may need it later."

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Awfully sorry, this chapter is plain gore. I'm sure there will be more later on… all apologies all the same. R&R people… R&R.**


	4. Meditation

**Review Response/s:**

**Wow! So many great reviews. Thank you all, you beautiful people are the reason I keep writing. hugs the big cluster of awesome people close**

**SPOILER: I've planned out a murder scene, which I have discussed with Tani, who is not to spill secrets of any variety under pain of torture. This, Tani, means no names, circumstances or motives. No being naughty. tuts**

**To all: I'm awfully sorry for the wait, my dears. Life has been a little hectic as of late. I completely forgot about this until I found all Tani's scary "update or I'll kill you!" reviews in my email inbox. Eep. ' Sorry.**

**Sooo... this is kinda just an emo-esque rant I threw together in about twenty seconds. It sucks, but don't kill me just because Silas isn't in it.**

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As Aringarosa stepped over the threshold of the American Opus Dei centre, he sighed again. Fairly soon, the media would be tracking him down and asking him about his connection with Silas and the murders that had taken place the previous week.

He'd been hoping to give a funeral for Silas, but Bezu Fache had taken the albino's body back to France with him to be examined. Fache had explained that he personally hadn't intended to do this, but after a few standard police procedures had been performed he had promised to give Aringarosa the body and help with the funeral. The officer and the priest had maintained contact after what the police called, "the Louvre incident", because of the situation's apparent connection to Louvre paintings, and the fourth murder of the night.

But the feeling was still there – he missed Silas more than he'd thought he would. The meetings seemed somehow empty without Silas sitting there, hanging onto his every word. But the Bishop wondered… who had Silas been, before? He'd never wanted to talk about his past, shrugging off all attempts to ask.

He gave himself a mental slap.

_Manuel, you are going over the same thing over and over,_ he thought. _He's gone, he isn't coming back. Missing him is normal. Come now, you've been through this before._

Remembering, he sighed, remembering a life before Opus Dei, a life before he wanted to think about the very word. He remembered his younger years… when he'd lost his little brother...

_No, come on… you don't want to think about that,_ he tried to reason, closing his eyes and sitting down on his bed. It was years since he'd even thought about this. In fact, it had been Silas who had kept him from thinking about it – Silas, who had nearly, for many years, taken the place of Tobias, the little brother who had been taken from Aringarosa too quickly.

Tobias had been born autistic – so in a way, he was still a child in some sense at the age of thirteen, when Manuel himself had been eighteen. The family had been forced to make a lot of painful changes to accommodate his needs – even now, Manuel remembered being brutally jealous as his parents moved to Tobias's attention, and not his. He remembered glancing over at him during the family's church visits, sitting next to their mother, swinging his legs back and forth underneath the pew. His deep brown eyes seemed to stare blankly into space, not making contact with anything. Like many autistic children, he didn't talk much.

When Manuel was thirteen, he won a scholarship to a Catholic boarding school for boys in Madrid, leaving his family and Tobias behind. He cared surprisingly little – almost glad to be away from the family where he received no attention. Friends from earlier schools were also plagued with younger siblings, but normally the unshared attention only lasted for a couple of years, and Tobias was different in that he required a lot more attention. But even with the apparent mentality of a three year old, there was a deeper quality to him, as if he knew more, but didn't have the means to convey it. And Tobias had _liked_ his brother – but unconsciously, he'd put him in too uncomfortable a position for such a feeling to be returned.

The Bishop sighed, casting his gaze downwards.

_It's my fault that he died, too…_ he thought sadly, closing his eyes and burying himself in painful memories from two different time periods.

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**I mostly only wrote this because we never got to hear about the Bishop's past in the book. Tobias is named after my lazy cat who sits around and does nothing all day.**

**...Not that Tobias Aringarosa (man that name has a good sound to it)is as lethargic. No.**

**Flames will result in me throwing myself offa cliff - so don't.**


	5. Down for Maintenance

**Hey guys and girls! Annabel here. Thank you for all the great reviews.**

**Unfortunately, my computer's just bugged and Microsoft Word (the processor I use to type my stories) has crashed, converting all my files into Notepads of undecipherable gibberish. I can't save any files at present, so updating will be held up for a little while. I'm very, very, sincerely sorry. When I can update again, rest assured I will. In the meantime, please be patient. _Back with a Vengeace_ will return as soon as I can fix my files.**

**When I come back, I maybe engineering a _Phantom of the Opera_ and _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ fan-fic. I might also be relocating to a different account name, which I will alert you to before the shift. Until then, au revoir, monsieurs et mademoiselles. Until we meet again!**

**Annabel Keys, over and out.**


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